Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Are there practical reasons to own a .300 H&H?

I wonder what EE would do to solve that. Those mags have the taper built in.

I’ve often thought about converting an 1895 Winchester in 30-40 Krag, to .303 B ,
or some semi-improved variant

303 British - another great , no venerable cartridge with a cachet of nostalgic cool .

Well, yeah. I have two, the sporterized No. 4 Mark 1 Lee-Enfield inherited from y father's brother Larry, who purchased it at a Coast to Coast hardware store in the 1950's, and an also sporterized Ross 1910.

Had a Ruger 1A for a while, which shot very well, but didn't find it as cool as the old rifles.

Ellwood would have changed the magazine follower. Because there is less taper with the Epps cartridge, the issue follower pushes the cartridge up too high and the bullet tip catches on the upper part of the chamber. It cannot be pushed forward into the chamber. At one time, he did have target (flat) followers that sat in the top of the mag over the existing follower. That made them single shots.

The simplest way to lessen the problem was to load a 303 British cartridge in first, and no more than two Epps cartridges in on top.

the coolest round I think I've ever seen, was a nickle plated 300 H & H with a 220 grain Round Nose.

I'm partial to the old 30/40 Krag with a 220 grain RN and the 303 Brit, with a 215 grain RN.

The 220 grain RN on the 06 case is always my favorite in the 30/06.

Practical?

I think the poster who surmised it might help you more quickly spot interesting vs. less interesting people to talk guns with had a point.

If a single man, I think you might attract a more worthwhile class of woman, one who understands and appreciates old school cool as opposed to the latest wundercartridge.

Yah, I'm not being completely serious. But neither are bad reasons!

Just think Steve McQueen's Jaguar XKSS and roll with the concept.

^^^^

Practical, no, cool yes!

Practical cats are usually a simple neck down of highly available brass.
.20-223, 7mm-300Win, Bushing dies complete the picture

Conversions of the H&H case were numerous, 308 Norma, .30-338 come to mind
Usually shortening it to fit into the more commonly available .30’06 length magazine.

Much more Practical . Loaded to higher pressures, they met velocity goals.

Ted[/quote]

I wonder what EE would do to solve that. Those mags have the taper built in.

I’ve often thought about converting an 1895 Winchester in 30-40 Krag, to .303 B ,
or some semi-improved variant

303 British - another great , no venerable cartridge with a cachet of nostalgic cool .[/quote]

One of these days I'll get around to posting photos-There's one in each chambering living here. The 303 gets used rarely, as it's an original Winchester, it does go hunting in nice weather, though. The 30 US is a Miroku built piece, gets used a fair amount, and qualifies as one of my better gun show finds.

That 1A should’ve either been boxed as an “ investment “, or “ improved “.
Not cool enough ? Too heavy I think would be one issue.

I’ve heard rumours of SxSs that have been converted to the Brit, but never seen such a gem.
Again I think barrel weight with inserts would be an issue. Love to carry it for Moose in bear country though.

F

Op - sorry for the 303B hijacque

SteveR - Thanks for filling in some details for me. I’ve seen/heard of some smle’s converted to 308Win, but they always had a different box magazine. Not sure if barrels were changed too. ;-)

Still for nostalgia, my Jungle Carbine tops the list. Vicious kicker that one.
Folding buttstock with an appropriate height cheekpiece couldn’t hurt.
Not worth the heartache of improving the chambering, or playing with taper.
Tough to improve on practical perfection of a packaged design.

Any improvement in that regard would have to be verified by maintaining the legendary rate of aimed fire against case stretch and extraction issues.

Win ‘94 and .30-30 , another classic 30

Super 30 Practical ? Maybe in the right package. 26” Ruger #1, Yes definitely. Pre ‘64 Sure
H&H or Rigby ? Out of my league, but not out of place.

338,

A local friend (who has more money to "invest" in rifles) has a .303 British double. Can't remember the make, but no surprise, it is a British gun.

Some of the rifles I've invested in that I'd kind of like to keep get sold because somebody reads about them in a magazine article, and makes an offer I can't refuse.

Ruger 1A's are pretty light rifles. With the scopes I typically put on 'em, they almost always weigh under 8 pounds.

It was my pleasure. The magazine had to be changed because the 7.62x51mm cartridge had different dimensions than the 303 British. The barrels were also changed to .308 diameter.

The reason why the No 5, commonly referred to as the Jungle Carbine, was uncomfortable for some people to fire was because of the stock pad. The cartridge is a pussy cat unless the buttplate is removed and a shorter, narrower, hard rubber pad was substituted. It's like the designers didn't test it before giving the go ahead for production.

And this probably should have ended this thread right there.

No. In fact, I would say by definition a rifle loony isn't primarily concerned with practicality, except in the very basic sense that a chosen rifle, cartridge and bullet should kill game.

But that's pretty much a given with the vast majority of rifles, cartridges and bullets these days. You have to try pretty hard to find something unsuitable for taking deer, or even elk.

Instead rifle loonies look more for other stuff, such as the right color stock (whether wood or synthetic), a feeling of self-worth for being such a fine judge of appropriate rifles, and however they define panache.

Interestingly, most dictionaries define panache as flamboyant confidence, or verve or dash in action. This is because the historical meaning was a plume of feathers worn on a headress, hat or helmet. But quite a few loonies seem to think it means conservative style.

Damn, I have to stick a feather in my M70 300.

Or your hat--or headdress....

There's really no reason to own one, unless you just got to have it. The reason i say no is because brass is harder to find than most other comparable 300 magnums, it's harder on brass because of the steep taper, just about any other 300 magnum beats it in performance. With this being said, there's absolutely nothing wrong with owning one, if you already have one. There's a lot of nostalgia and cool factor in the H&H. I'm actually doing something I've been wanting to do for a damn long time and re-chambering one of my rifles to 308 Norma magnum, but it falls in the same category as the H&H. Great old cartridges with history, but probably not the best choice in 300 magnum that's available these days...

I just thought it was because you are really old....

I'd take a 300 WSM over a 300 WM.